


Familiarity, Not To Be Confused For Affection

by lobac



Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse), Venom (Comics)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Dysfunctional Relationships, Excessive Domesticity, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jackasses Being Jackasses, M/M, Multi, Other, Puppies (???), Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24828067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lobac/pseuds/lobac
Summary: Peter takes Eddie in as his newest ex-supervillain roommate! Everything goes well and they discover the true meaning of friendship, probably.They also discover a strange creature. Can't even agree on what it looks like. Typical.
Relationships: Eddie Brock/Peter Parker, Eddie Brock/Peter Parker/Venom Symbiote, Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote
Comments: 71
Kudos: 121





	1. Wouldn't It Be Nice (1)

**Author's Note:**

> every bit of canon that displeases me or was otherwise inconvenient to the cause has been unceremoniously discarded. “what’s canon then” beyond what’s explicitly shown, it is up to you, friend.

It’s nice, for a while. They walk into the movie theater arm in arm, casually, like there’s nowhere else, nothing else for them to be. They line up for their tickets, all chivalry and charm, wrapped up in a playful routine that comes alive with knowing looks, intimate subtleties. Warmth in their eyes. Not as much as there could be, maybe, something holding it back, maybe. A brush of fingertips that turns to a tight smile and a short squeeze. Still. It’s nice. It’s just about as nice as anything ever gets.

Minutes later, Peter reminds himself that there’s no such thing as jinxing it. If he thinks “This is as nice as it gets,” and then he walks to the back of the theater to look for their seats, and then he finds his ex-nemesis slung across them, eyes closed, drooling slightly, then that's another data point in a pattern of correlation, not causation.

That’s the thought he keeps at the forefront of his mind, anyway. Somewhere at the back, Peter hears himself screaming as he looks from his ticket to the seat number and back again.

"Well.” MJ's fingers tap against his arm, still holding on to it. “He's just... sleeping."

Peter makes a number of noises to himself, like “Hmm,” and “Mmh,” and “Mhmhmhmhm,” trying to look anywhere else. Then he finally turns to MJ. “Why?” he asks, pleading. “Why would he be sleeping here?”

MJ purses her lips. “Long day at work?”

Peter snorts despite himself. “Regional HR manager Venom,” he whispers to her.

MJ hums. “Dead-end office job Venom.”

“Welcome to McDonald’s, may we take your order?” Peter says, holding one nostril closed and putting on his best growl. MJ's dimples could brighten up any situation, he thinks. "He's got to… fit through the little drive-through window all the time, that's why…"

"Sir? Ma’am?"

At the sound of an unfamiliar voice, Peter turns around. An usher, no older than twenty, is making her way up the stairs, waddling a bit, arms outstretched. Mildly agitated, clearly.

She catches her breath. "Sir, is this your seat? I'm so sorry-"

"Oh, I- Listen, don't worry about it. No problem at all." Not for her, anyway.

Her relief is palpable. "I just- I try not to kick out people who are, uh, you know, looking for a place to… sleep." She freezes back up again, as if she's said too much. "But, I mean- I can! I have to, if you, uh, insist, sir, but really, there's… so much room in here, so many seats, we never sell out-"

"Hey there, Holly."

That voice, then, is more familiar than he’d like, even raspy with sleep. Peter turns back to see Eddie moving himself upright, wiping his face on his sleeve.

"Hey, Mr., uh, Freddie!"

"Freddie?" Peter mouths, silently, first at Eddie, then at MJ. She only shrugs her shoulders.

Eddie ignores him entirely, opting to look at Holly, instead. "Is this man bothering you?" he says, nodding in Peter's direction. "Need me to escort him outside?"

Peter’s eyes go wide, but his silent outrage goes unacknowledged. He turns back to Holly, but before he can try to defend himself, she’s already lowering her hands in a placating gesture. Seems like she’s taking some satisfaction in it, suddenly standing up straight.

“No, he’s- he’s fine. That, uh. Not this time.”

Peter spins back around. “This time?” he mouths at Eddie, more urgently.

Eddie scoffs, leaning to one side with his arm on his knee to talk straight past Peter. “Don’t be so sure. I know his type.”

“Do you, sir?” Peter says, more loudly than he meant to. He shrivels under the attention they’re beginning to draw, even over the droning sound of big screen commercials.

“Of course. You would’ve already moved on with your life if you weren’t one of those self-appointed law and order types.” Eddie flexes his fingers in front of his face. "You’re going to have an innocent man removed from his only sanctuary, aren’t you?”

“Alright, no,” Peter says, “no to literally all of this, every part of this situation, no to you, no to-” He turns, one more time, to face Holly, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Listen-”

Eddie’s hand unclenches, motioning as if to present him to the crowd. “There he goes, getting physical. I did warn you.”

Peter draws back and lets his arms drift in Eddie’s direction, instead, ready to strangle him, but restrains himself. “Listen,” he says, tinged with desperation, “You’re great, you’re doing great, doing good, but that is not who you think it is.”

“Oh?” Holly says. “Oh! So you do know each other!”

“What, you couldn’t tell?” Eddie says, almost smug. "Is our rapport not effortless?"

Peter keeps looking at Holly, but gestures back at him, wishing he could just web his mouth shut. “Enough out of you-”

“Hey, Holly,” MJ calls from somewhere off to the side, forcing Peter to turn again. She’s stepping over the other guests in exaggerated, high-heel wearing motions. “I’m sitting down, is that okay?”

“Oh, sure!” Holly calls back, waving her down. “Anywhere you like!”

“Cool!”

“Cool!”

Peter’s brain feels scrambled. He looks after her like a puppy abandoned at a gas station. She flashes him a peace sign.

“Anyway,” Holly says, somehow more in control of the situation than him. “That’s great! You can help him, then!”

“Help him-” Peter looks at Eddie. Reassuringly, his facial expression matches his own exactly.

“Yes, I mean, it’s not- It’s not ideal, sleeping in movie theaters, is it? Even, uh, top of the line IMAX?”

“No,” Peter mumbles, thinking it through. The first thing on his mind had been kicking his ass, but hey, maybe the two courses of action could be reconciled. “No. You know what? You’re right. We’ve got...” He shoots him the most meaningful look he can manage. “...a lot to talk about.”

Eddie only rolls his eyes. As if on cue, darkness descends on the theater.

"Cool, cool. Glad to help," Holly says. "But also, you should, uh, probably also leave, now, before it starts. It's not a big crowd, but it's, well, riled up, a little…"

Peter looks around. There's hardly anybody left who isn't staring at him like they’re trying to make his head explode. Only MJ gives him a cheerful little wave.

"Let's get out of here," he sighs, resigned to his fate. He's already on the move when he hears Eddie apologise to the entire room, projecting his voice, 'on his associate's behalf'.

He waits in front of the exit. The second Eddie emerges, a backpack slung over his shoulder, he's dragging him along by the collar. He knows better than to fight it.

"How did you even find me?" he asks, amused. "What kind of nefarious tracking device did you stick me with?"

"None, believe it or not.” Peter looks back at him, bitterly. “That was pure Parker luck."

"I'm not sure I do believe that," he says, "but I suppose it might’ve been _mine_."

Peter pushes him into the bathroom, shuts the door behind them and checks that the stalls are empty.

"Straight to the men's room," Eddie says, leaning against the wall. "Bold."

Peter isn't biting. He rubs the bridge of his nose, then folds his hands in front of his mouth. "Okay," he says. He points his folded hands towards him. "Why the hell are you homeless?"

"Socioeconomic factors,” Eddie says, off-handedly.

"I am asking, Eddie," he says, stressing his name like the grip on the back of a cat's neck, "what happened to you, because the last time I saw you, you had a place and a job."

“What do you care?”

A fair question, really, but not one Peter has the luxury of asking himself about, well, anyone. Certainly not one he wants to ask himself about Eddie. “Let’s assume I do, despite how hard you’re making it for me.”

Eddie looks exasperated, like Peter’s the one who’s being difficult. “I'm sure you can figure it out, if you care so much.”

Right. Peter knows that he’s not, technically, looking at Venom. He knows that he came to some kind of agreement with Flash, about switching off, taking some time off, whatever, for whatever reason, and then he, or they, left for Philly. He knows that much. He knows more about it from Flash’s perspective, and he’d been pretty straight-forwardly elated.

Did Eddie crumble to pieces over it? Should he have known? Should he have done something about it? It seems unreasonable to expect him to. Peter cares, and he doesn't. He can't, and he can't not. He shouldn't have to, and he does.

“Well, whatever happened,” he says, because he doesn’t want to get into it, if it’s that kind of thing, “so long as you’re still up for antagonising me, it can’t be that bad.”

“I could keep doing that until my dying breath." Eddie makes a fist, solemn. "It’s my sacred calling. One of them, anyway.”

"Why don't you use that energy on getting your shit together, huh?"

Eddie mumbles something unintelligible. Safe to assume it's something rude. “I can’t exactly file for unemployment,” he says, slowly, like Peter’s an idiot, “and seeking out a shelter isn’t an option. I am a… person of interest. I refuse to drag the kind of trouble that'd come looking for me into a place that’s dedicated to the vulnerable and forgotten.”

That's… considerate of him, Peter supposes. He can't say he'd be comfortable with it, either. He's not sure there's any option he'd be comfortable with. A jail cell? No way. A friend's place? What friends he has seem to be Peter's friends, first and foremost, not people he'd wish the full Eddie Brock Experience on. Family? He knows better than to even imply it.

Flash... He's just glad he seems stable. Glad him and Eddie are far away from each other, frankly. So long as one of them has the symbiote, it's only going to spell disaster for them to be... overly aware of each other. It's only going to cause them to regress, bringing up those memories.

"Must be tough, being out of options," Peter says, performing empathy and denying the other options out of existence all at once. Rhetorical maneuvers, baby.

“It's none of your concern,” Eddie says. Responding to the empathy part, then.

“It is, though? It really is."

Eddie goes on the defensive, crossing his arms. “Sounds like a you problem.”

"Sounds like an all of us problem, if the pattern holds and you're off trying to purify the population by next week." 

"Well," Eddie says, with his facial features unable to agree on what to do, "no need to get personal."

"Eddie, if you're not keenly aware that being homeless and alone makes you..." Peter counts on his fingers. "At least twenty percent more unstable, then frankly that is the first warning sign right there."

Somebody enters the bathroom. Peter and Eddie stand there, silent, frozen, staring each other down the entire time it takes him to unzip, take a piss, zip up, and leave without washing his hands.

“Oh, I’m gonna get him,” Eddie starts.

“Do not,” Peter says, guiding him back.

He can’t leave him out here. For the sake of society as much as his own. There's really only one person he trusts to keep an eye on him.

"Alright." Peter thinks of all the ways he'll regret doing this and all the ways he'd regret not doing this. Not too much, though. He can’t think about it too much. "You can crash on my couch."

Eddie's lower lip twitches. "I don't recall asking."

"Not like I asked for this, either," Peter says, and thinks. There's got to be some advantage he has. Something he can leverage. Something he'll care about, if not himself.

It's obvious, then.

"Maybe you should, though. Ask yourself a few questions, I mean." Peter crosses his arms, mirroring him, except he's on the offensive. "Like, what would you rather tell Flash when he comes back? That you ended up out on the streets, or that you swallowed your pride and looked to your... me, for support?"

Realisation slowly dawns on Eddie's face. Then resentment. He doesn’t say anything. Seems like he’s right on the money, then.

"You weren't going to tell him at all, were you? Doesn't make you seem all that trustworthy, or, y'know, stable. Don't know if I'd give it back, if I was him. But hey, it's up to you."

"Blackmail," he says, curtly. "Of course."

"It's not… blackmail. It's accountability."

"And you're making it contingent on my behaviour!” Eddie snaps forward like a dog who's reached the end of his chain. “That's what blackmail is! I'd say it's a new low, but we both know it's par for the course!"

"I'm not forcing you to do anything for me, I'm offering- I'm literally offering you a place to stay. Couch, shower, breakfast included... Come on. I know I'll be the bad guy no matter what I do, but-"

"No integrity," Eddie says, fists balled at his sides, looking down at him. "None whatsoever. Dealbreaking, blackmailing, rotten little…"

"You know _I_ can do that, too, right? You know I’m choosing not to fling any adjectives your way? 'Cause you know, Eddie, I've got some choice ones in reserve." He practically spits ‘choice’ at him.

Eddie turns away with a shake of his head. “Can’t believe this,” he says, running his hands through his hair. “It would’ve been fine.” He looks over his shoulder. “You know this isn’t my first go ‘round the gutter.”

"Yeah, and that makes every time you roll back in there better instead of worse," Peter says, nodding along mockingly. "Really, I love watching your brain work. It's like a hamster spinning on a wheel that smacks it in the face on every revolution." 

"I am saying," Eddie forces out, impotently angry, "that I have experience in dealing with it."

“I dunno. Usually you’re at least, like… protected. Got your… portable tent.”

Eddie narrows his eyes at him, mouth open. “Don’t call my Other a tent,” he says, disgusted.

“I’m just saying. You’re vulnerable. More than you’re used to, maybe.”

There's hurt in Eddie's eyes, definitely. Some other things, too. Various twitches in his face.

"I don't even have to tell him, do I?" Peter tries, with much more confidence than he feels. "You want to change for real, right? You don't want to do this."

The door is pushed open. Once, then again and again. Some movie must’ve just ended. Peter moves to grab Eddie by the arm, but he yanks it away, then follows him outside, regardless. They exchange a look, and, even as he scowls, Eddie nods.

They walk across the gaudy carpets and past the neon lights in silence. The stairs are the most awkward part, probably. Just something awkward about stairs. Never know how quickly to take them.

They emerge into the cold, crisp evening air, and the change in atmosphere always brings a change in perspective with it. What a decision to make. What a thing to look forward to. An opportunity, maybe. God knows they should… work this out, whatever this is. Ideally, they'd just stay out of each other's way, yes, but it's never, ever worked out that way, has it?

“Taking me to your place, then?” Eddie finally says, hands in his hoodie. "Public bathroom not fancy enough for you, after all?"

Peter turns to him, slowly. “For what, exactly?”

“For a brawl, of course.”

Oh, that's one thing he's going to enjoy. Eddie, not posing any kind of threat or challenge. Peter looks out into the parking lot. “You're not gonna last long, buddy.”

“Hm.”

“I mean-" Peter winces, thankful that he can’t see his face. "Don’t do that.”

"That wasn't _me_."

"Yes, it was. How do you do that?" Peter turns back, moves his hand in a circle, as if warding him off. "You're like a… vortex of…" He stops. "Whatever. You’re just stealing my bit and making it creepy. That’s all you ever do, you know that?”

Eddie shakes his head. He looks tired. He just looks like… just like some guy. Just some guy under a street lamp, with a backpack and worn-out clothes and messy hair and not much else. It’s awful. It’s really, really awful, and Peter wishes he could say it's because he feels bad for him, but it’s more like a sense of wrongness. Whenever he looks at him for too long, there’s something going on in there that isn’t quite right. 

Boy, he can’t wait to feel like that all the time.

“Are we going, then?”

“I don’t have a choice,” Eddie says, unamused. “Don’t make me say it again just to humiliate me.”

Peter huffs. “Like I… care about your ego, either way.”

They keep stalling for time. Responsibility, Peter thinks. Whose is he, if not yours?

He takes the first step.

* * *

"This place is cramped," is the first thing Eddie proclaims upon entering the apartment. "Where am I going to make room for all my worldly possessions?"

Peter pulls the backpack off his shoulder, spinning to hurl it into a gap between the couch and the corner. "There," he says.

"Incredible. You did it." Eddie stares, for a moment. Then he drops onto the couch like a log, face-first. "I'm moved in," he says, muffled.

"You sure are," Peter says. Let him catch up on whatever amount of sleep Peter so rudely roused him from.

He checks his phone. Still on silent, several texts missed. There's an update from MJ. Holly says thanks, she says. Holly was worried, she says. Holly has never heard him speak so much in one day, she says. Something else, then, about the movie and whether they talked it out or killed each other, but he hardly feels able to keep reading. He looks over at Eddie, head buried in his arms.

Peter swallows. It's an awful, awful feeling.


	2. Wouldn't It Be Nice (2)

There's always that glimmer of hope, you know? Every time the symbiote has been extracted from the convolutions of Eddie's brain, he's allowed himself to wish, to pray, to dream that there’s a normal guy underneath it all, that it’ll take the worst parts of him with it.

It hasn’t happened so far. It would just be nice, which is also why it’s too much to ask.

* * *

Peter’s minding his own business, scrolling through news tickers (regarding himself and otherwise) when Eddie’s shadow falls on him.

"Peter. Give me your laptop."

Peter, of course, promtply slaps it shut, heartily acting the part of someone who’s receiving good news instead of unearned entitlement. “Don’t tell me. You’re going to get a job!”

“I did get a job,” Eddie replies, voice dripping with disdain. “I'm a writer again.”

Seems like a strange thing not to mention. Not that there’s a lot Eddie mentions to him. He mostly just complains when they’re out of eggs. Peter has no idea if that’s progress or not.

“You are?”

“What did you think I was doing at the library all day?”

Peter shrugs. “Avoiding me, mostly. One of us has to do it.”

“Right. Give me your laptop.”

“What’re you writing?”

Eddie pauses, looking away, as if he has to choose his next words very carefully. “Articles,” is what he settles on.

Peter tilts his head at that. “What kinds of articles?”

“Short. Simple. Structured.” Then, working his jaw: “For online publication.”

Peter leans back, the corner of his mouth quirking upward. “Like… listicles?”

Eddie gives a sideways nod, like a real one would be too painful. “An abomination of a term for an abomination of a genre.”

“Oh my god. What, like, ‘25 Ways To Tell You’re A 90s Kid’? ‘Top 12 Cats With Eyebrows’? You’re just pumping those out all day?”

“That may be a more accurate description than ‘writing’, yes.”

Peter steeples his fingers and rests his chin on them. “I’m a big fan. Why don't you tell me one you got published? I want to sample your work.”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” Eddie says, moving in, facial features frozen, “because every morning I enter a stupor, if not a torpor, get my work done without any active input on the part of my conscious mind, flee the one place I should feel competent in, step into the home of my ex-nemesis and do my meditation exercises to clear my memories of the day’s events before they catch up with me.”

Peter has been slowly pushed back into the couch cushions, head between Eddie’s arms. “Peter,” he says, imitating Eddie’s ridiculous rumble, “please don’t make fun of my writing.”

“I get intense about it, if you’ll remember.”

“Something about your soul, right?”

“It’s always about my soul. Give me your laptop.”

Peter clings to it, instead, lifting one foot to Eddie’s chest to push him away. “For what? You can’t research the top ten forgotten boy band members on a public computer?”

There’s a very particular scrunch to Eddie’s face. Some kind of internal conflict going on. “For a video call,” he relents.

“Really?”

“Yes. I arranged for a video call with my Other.”

“...And Flash?” Wouldn’t that be awkward? Worse, what if it wouldn’t be?

The scrunch returns. "No."

“It just seems, you know… Like he would be there.”

“That doesn’t mean I arranged for a video call with Flash.”

“I see.”

“Flash is a consequence, not a motivation.”

“Fine, then. I guess I did, uh. Tell you to tell him.”

Peter unfolds on the couch, setting up the laptop in front of him.

“I haven’t said anything, you know.”

It seems like something Eddie should respond to, maybe with some kind of word starting with a th-sound, but he only wrinkles his nose a bit.

“Should I wait, or-”

The moment he’s unlocked the laptop, hands still hovering over the keys, Eddie snatches it away. Peter freezes, then flicks his wrists outwards, palms facing up.

“Alright. First of all, rude.”

“I’m going to need some privacy.”

Oh, that's downright irritating. It finally pushes Peter off the couch. “I’m sorry,” he says, “Mr. Tremble-Before-The-Might-Of-My-SAT-Vocabulary, did you forget how to form a question?”

“Just step outside for a while.”

“You put a verb in front of that subject or so help me,” Peter snaps, pointing for emphasis.

Eddie takes a step towards him. He’s got that insufferable ‘look how much space I take up’ body language going on. ‘Oh, look at me, I have the shoulder-to-shoulder measurements of a brown bear.’ As if it matters.

“Look,” he says, putting one hand on Peter’s shoulder, then the other. “Just,” he says, and the only reason Peter doesn’t flick him off and send him tumbling through the window is to watch him realise that he will not, in fact, be herding him out the door today.

“Did you forget?” Peter asks, planted like an oak tree.

Eddie only looks at him, tight-lipped.

“Don’t worry. You’re gonna remember real quick.”

Eddie deflates. He fights it, but he does. “Listen, just give me a moment alone.”

Peter sweeps Eddie's arms off his shoulders. "Why should I?"

"What- Why not?"

"Why should I leave you alone to- to plot?" Peter shoos him away. The man seems to have no concept of a respectful distance, or even a safe one.

Eddie groans, head tilted back. "We don’t plot anymore. We plan.” He fans out his hands. “Flash will be there, don't you trust him?"

"What if I want to see him, too?"

"Call him on your own time!"

"It is my own time! This is my place, that is my laptop, and on the other end is my friend! I have every right to know-”

"Fine!"

Eddie leans right back in again, emboldened by some terrible idea. His expression is somewhere between gritted teeth and a grin. He’s never seen it under circumstances that didn’t end painfully.

"Fine, then. Please, have a seat! Let me expose you to the depths of my soul!"

"Uh," Peter says.

"Yes, I'm going to get right down to the intimate details of everything I miss about our bond.” Eddie enunciates with gusto. “Feeling it writhe underneath the skin, inside my very heart. Opening myself completely to another..."

Peter cannot help the grimace that slowly takes hold of his face.

“There's great mental endurance required in a long-distance relationship, but...” Regrettably, Eddie starts gesturing. “When you do see each other, the explosion of pent-up-"

"Alright!" Peter raises his hands defensively, crawling with the sensation of slime in places he hadn’t known he had, lurking at the back of his brain. He takes another second to process the implications.

"With… With Flash there…?"

"Do you know me," Eddie says, grinning now, definitely, "as a coward?"

That uncovers a whole new layer of repressed memories. "Alright," Peter says, grabbing his phone and wallet. "Have fun," he says, putting on his shoes.

He’s out of there in record time.

“Pick up some eggs while you’re out, Parker.”

The door slams shut, and, instantly enraged, Peter turns on his heel to pull a punch that could have splintered the thing into a thousand pieces, but only ends up eliciting muffled laughter.

Fine. It’s all fine. Maybe he will. Maybe he will go on a grocery run. Anything that takes place anywhere else sounds great right about now. In there is the last place he wants to be, even if Eddie definitely doesn’t want him there, and even if there has to be some other reason for it.

It’s fine. Peter walks down the corridor. He takes the first flight of stairs, and it’s fine. He has more important things to worry about. He takes another step, and another. He stops. He breathes, deeply. He closes his eyes.

Moments later, Peter presses one ear to the door, silently cursing himself. No voices. Just the vibrations associated with Eddie moving an unreasonable amount of body weight around the place. Was the call a cover for something else? What kinds of shady dealings could be dealt with his laptop? He doesn’t keep any sensitive information on there. He’s deleted his browsing history.

Eventually, finally, Eddie starts talking. Too low to make out what he’s saying. Occasionally, there’s another, tinny voice, definitely someone through shitty laptop speakers, probably someone who sounds like Flash. Maybe it was true, then. He should be able to interrogate, or rather, casually ask him about it later.

Peter slumps against the door, dropping the pretense of going anywhere. Eddie’s voice is a ridiculous rumble, still, but it has a different… something, to it. Peter desperately tries to avoid thinking the words “softer quality”. A higher pitch, but like, the underlying kind? Whatever.

It pisses him off. Every sign of his humanity pisses him off almost as much as the opposite does. That's the thing about Eddie that gets Peter into situations like these: a murderer, but he mostly means well, and well, don’t you know, sometimes he sounds like he loves someone, or pulls a baby from a burning building or whatever. Great. Is he worth giving up on? No. Is he worth putting up with? Barely.

He's not a monster. He's not a hero. And if Peter can't change that, he's gonna haunt him forever. Venom, whipping criminals with their own spines on Saturdays, reading bedtime stories to their orphaned children on Sundays. Sponsored by Peter Parker! Made possible by his carelessness around alien technology.

At least Eddie can’t do any actual damage for now. Quite literally defanged and declawed. All he can do is torment him by putting him through an endless comedy routine/power struggle, so that seems to be how he makes up for everything else.

There’s another noise, now. A rumble, a purr? Did Flash get a cat?

Eddie laughs, warmly, calmly. Like it’s easy.

Like it’s… What, what is this? Like it’s someone else, and then it’s easy? Like it’s someone else, and then he’s someone else? Peter thinks of the man Eddie's ex-wife described to him, there one moment, gone the next. Is he only there when his back is turned? When he's locked out of his own apartment?

Trying to get close to him might not even be the right approach. It never meant anything good for the symbiote, and Flash certainly isn’t equipped to handle him. If Eddie hates Peter, it's because he doesn't go along with his delusions. It's because he holds him accountable. If Eddie hates Peter, it's because he decided to, just so he wouldn't have to hate himself.

His seething finally comes to an end when heavy footsteps approach the door. Peter slides towards the wall and climbs to the ceiling, noiselessly, effortlessly, just in time for Eddie to open the door and look down the corridor.

The door closes. Peter exhales.

His phone begins to ring.

The door opens again.

Eddie stares up at him, flip phone in hand.

"What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with _you_?" Peter can only think to reply, narrowing his eyes at him. He gracefully drops to the floor and pushes past Eddie into the apartment.

“You’re sleeping on the couch for that stunt,” he says, locking himself in his bedroom.

Eddie's been sleeping on the couch for… about a week, of course. Temporarily. Just until the next time they perform that ill-advised host swapping operation. Just until he gets on his feet, just to keep an eye on him, just to… Well, he's sure he had his reasons at the time.

If there was some way to get through to him, it might be worth it.

* * *

Peter could make more of an effort, he supposes. No need to go straight for the big guns, just attempt to have a casual conversation. Ask about something he likes. Literature? Bodybuilding? Aliens?

Hunting him for sport?

Peter perches on one end of the couch. "Hey, Eddie," comes out of his mouth, "you know, way back when, did you ever have any murder schemes I never got to experience? Anything particularly vicious and disgusting?"

"Certainly," he replies, not at all perturbed. "Insecticide."

"Insecticide?"

"Enough to drown you in, of course."

“Of course.”

“Logistically, more difficult than you might think. Not so much the amount of insecticide required as the vessel to contain it. It’d have to hold you, too, you see. Open long enough to force you in, closed quickly and solidly enough to keep you from getting out.”

Peter hums. “I can see the problem.”

“And maybe a big enough hunk of metal would do it, but that’s an artless solution. The whole joy of it would be in seeing the, you know…” Eddie mimes pounding at a glass pane above him, then clawing at his throat and eyes, whisper-screaming.

“Anyway, that didn’t pan out. It wasn’t snappy enough. We went a simpler, more personal route and flash froze you to transport you to a deserted island, instead.”

“Thank you for this once-in-a-lifetime look behind the scenes.”

“My pleasure. Don’t ask me any more questions.”

“I don’t think I will.”

* * *

Mercifully, Eddie gets through most of his work-out routine while Peter's away, not on the rare occasions that he’s trying to rest. That's also when he gulps down his protein shakes and remarkably little actual food. Not sure what "cutting" means, but it sounds painful.

He's keeping in shape, anyway. Triangle, to name the specific shape. Peter knows an above average number of guys who look like that, but there's something different about it on Eddie. Not even in his shape so much as how he carries himself.

One evening, it occurs to him. Eddie comes out of the shower, with a towel - a hand towel, for god's sake, he never listens - loosely held in front of his crotch, hint of a happy trail and all. He glistens in the low lamp light. Caught off-guard, Peter snorts.

It does, sometimes, seem like his symbiote was more interested in preserving his decency than him. Wasn’t funny at the time, of course, trying to take down a guy who’s trying to kill you and getting an eyeful, but now, so absurdly recontextualised… It’s one of the forms the awful-awful feeling can take, probably. Hysterical anger, hysterical laughter. Both at once.

"What?" Eddie asks, having retrieved his phone, leaning sideways against the doorframe, hips at an angle. Peter could swear he's about to start making his pectorals dance, but at the same time, he can't imagine it's on purpose.

"You look like a Tom of Finland pin-up," Peter says, suppressing a grin.

Eddie seems to seriously contemplate this for a moment. "That's not an insult," he says.

"I- I guess not? Not until you grow a mustache.”

Peter pointedly returns his attention to the TV. He can feel Eddie’s eyes on him, waiting for something more.

“Alright, listen, does everything I say to you have to be an insult?”

“I’m not the one to ask.”

“Fair.” Peter gestures at him with the remote. “Does everything _you_ say to _me_ have to be an insult?”

“Mostly, yes.”

Peter wants to say something else, but wisely decides to stuff his mouth with a handful of M&Ms, instead, shooting him a dirty look. Eddie promptly turns to leave, removing the towel to dry off his hair with the perfect timing to avoid ruining the cut of a gay indie film.

"Nitwit."

Peter seriously thinks he’s going to snap soon.

* * *

“Ha!” Eddie bellows, mirthfully, from the living room, and Peter is immediately overcome by a sense of dread. Conditioned, he supposes. He leans backwards, past the kitchen doorframe, to see him bent over the newspaper.

“You, uh, you enjoying the Garfield strip there, buddy?”

“Please. As if it didn’t peak in the 80s.” Then, before Peter can inquire as to the specifics of Eddie’s apparent Garfield opinions: “Someone assassinated the CEO of an oil and gas giant.”

“Mm,” Peter says, grabbing some leftover pizza from the microwave and, against his best interests, sitting down next to him. “Sure. Okay. Tell me about it.”

“Oh, the usual. Spills from cut maintenance costs. Suppressing clean energy.” Eddie’s smile is best described as sloppy. “I remember reporting on a protest against a pipeline they laid out.” He leans over to speak directly into his ear. “You know, back when I did that kind of thing.”

Peter raises the slice off the plate, expressionless. “How could I forget.”

“Shame we didn’t get to him, first. Just him, me, my Other, some secluded alleyway and a nice… big… bite…” His eyes keep flicking sideways, checking for a reaction. “But it’s good to know there’s still heroes out there, isn’t it, Parker?” He bumps his shoulder into Peter’s.

Bile accumulates in Peter’s throat. The slice hits the plate.

“Alright, you got me. You know that was almost definitely done in the name of corporate interests, right? You know it didn't do anything about any of the structures that got us here? You know all that’s changed is we have one more murderer and one less human life in the world?”

“Well, I knew it'd get to you.”

Instinctively, just in time, Peter pulls the plate out of Eddie’s grasp. The latter keeps reaching for it, Peter balancing it behind him, holding him off with one hand placed squarely on his face. In retrospect, his mistake would be obvious. Eddie licks a long, wet stripe up Peter’s palm.

He looks at it, half-way between horrified and numb.

“Is this… No, yeah. It's worse like this, somehow.”

Just as Eddie lets out another “Ha!”, Peter sends the slice flying into his face.

* * *

“Candy clearance!” Peter announces, triumphantly, as he kicks the door closed behind him. He completes the sacred ritual of dumping the spoils out all over the kitchen table, taking in the mark of excess - nay, of success - that is the chocolate bars clattering to the floor.

“I know that noise,” Eddie says, poking his head around the corner.

“I thought it’d attract you.” Peter rifles through the pile. “Twenty cents a piece. You like this stuff, right?”

Eddie furrows his eyebrows. “...At times. In a sense. Why?”

Peter stands there, staring with a blank smile as he wonders how the answer to such a simple question can raise so many more questions. “You know what? Nevermind. You wanna split a box of Peeps?”

“...Sure.”

“You want me to tear off the heads and throw them to you?”

“No.”

Eddie turns away. Eddie turns back.

“Yes.”

They scramble to execute the plan. Eddie sits on the floor, and when Peter tosses the first lump of sugarised sugar to him, he dives for it like a shark diving out of the ocean to catch a seagull mid-flight, snapping his jaw shut with a shake of his head, like he’s caught a neck to break between his teeth.

“Huh!” Peter says.

Eddie grins, wide, and you almost can’t tell he doesn’t have any fangs.

He’ll get them from anywhere. High arc, low arc. Fastball, curveball. No matter how Peter tries to throw him off, skittering across the ceiling. It’s ridiculous. He stumbles over furniture, laughing, and the one thing Peter hadn’t expected out of the arrangement was for either of them to end up happy.

It makes his stomach churn with something like guilt. The happiness or the expectation, he isn’t sure. Sometimes his brain likes to provide him with generalised regret to keep him on his toes.

“This is pretty much what my diet used to look like,” Eddie says, laid out on the floor.

“Not just that, right?” Peter decapitates another Peep, determined to make himself too sick to have feelings. It just ends up helping the feeling of sickness along. “How does marshmallow-sponginess compare to brain-sponginess, anyhow?”

He flicks another head at him. This one bounces off his cheek.

“Well, there’s the obvious. It’s wet, and squishy, and it…” Eddie pauses. The silence is, suddenly, uncomfortable. “Your teeth sink through it very easily, if it doesn't slip away. It’s softer than you’d think. It wouldn’t even hold its shape in your hands.”

Peter can’t tell which one of them he feels worse for. Whoever they owe this information to, he decides.

“The less obvious answer,” Eddie says, sharp, “is that only one of them gives you night terrors and dooms your immortal soul to eternal damnation.”

“I, uh. Yeah.”

“And the correct answer,” he continues, “is ‘What the hell keeps possessing you to ask questions like that, you absolute waste of good brain meat?’”

“I don’t know,” Peter says, defensive. “Whatever possessed me to make my next roomie a movie monster, I guess.”

After a moment, Eddie nods to himself. “Right.” He rises to his feet, dusts himself off. “I’m going to take a walk. See if I can’t hear a scare chord when I come around the corner.”

“Eddie…”

He’s gone before he knows it.

Peter realises there might be some degree of self-sabotage going on.

* * *

For the sake of his sanity, Peter decides he needs a plan. There’s only two obstacles, really, to Operation: Build A Bond With Eddie Before He Goes Crazy Again So That We May Rein In The Crazy In The Future (Spare Us All Some Grief). One’s Eddie. The other is himself.

Peter scrawls down some notes about their interactions so far.

 ~~COMFORT ZONE~~ DISCOMFORT ZONE

  * bickering about those times he traumatised me
  * bickering about those times his symbiote traumatised me
  * bickering about whether it is okay to kill people
  * bickering about whether it is okay to eat mayonnaise with a spoon
  * bickering (other)
  * moments of camaraderie while united against greater threat 
    * world-threatening? will life-threatening do? look into this



MJ looks over his shoulder. “Hm,” she says, only because she’s not enough of a downer to say “Yikes”. She still employs the raised-eyebrows sip-from-coffee routine.

“So the problem is,” Peter says, tapping the note, “we’re stuck. We’re stuck right here.”

“And you’ve tried…?”

“Everything!” he says, throwing his hands up in the air. On his next exhale, he drops them and crosses his arms. “Nothing. It just never goes anywhere.”

“Why not?”

“It just feels… wrong. It’s easier to keep going through the motions. I mean, he looks at me like I’ve grown four extra arms when I try to be nice.”

“Maybe he just isn’t used to it.”

“Of course he isn’t used to it. You've met him. It’s… It’s just...”

MJ gives his shoulder a comforting pat. He trails off, huffing.

“Listen,” she says. “I don’t think Eddie’s a lost cause, either. People will do, and be, and pretend to be… all kinds of things to keep from being hurt.”

He gives her a sideways glance. “But?”

“But that doesn’t mean I should be the one to…” She waves her hand. “...try to save him, or fix him, or whatever. That doesn’t mean that I’d want to, or that he’d want me to.”

"Of course it shouldn’t be you. That’s a horrifying thought.” After a moment’s contemplation, he shakes his head, amused. “But you might be able to handle him better than me, honestly.”

“Why does it have to be you?”

He makes a face, head propped up on one elbow. He feels like he has his reasons, rattling around in his chest somewhere. If they were in his head, he might be able to explain.

“Well, it started with me.”

“Peter…” MJ looks at him, affectionate and long-suffering.

“It’d just be… It just ought to end with me.”

“You think that makes sense? The guy who's got more baggage with him than anyone else should be the one to befriend him?”

Peter pouts. “The fact that it’s stupid won’t stop me from thinking it.”

"No. It only ever encourages you."

"I appreciate your support more than I can say."

“Alright. Here’s another perspective.” She puts two fingers to his cheek, ensuring he’ll look at her. “If you feel like Eddie’s your burden to bear, he can probably tell.”

Peter opens his mouth. He gets as far as “Well,” before he closes it again.

“If being nice to him feels wrong, and everything he does irritates you… He can probably tell.”

Peter’s face falls. Something in his stomach, too.

“That’s the way to hurt his ego, which, you know. Dangerous thing to do."

“I know, I just…”

MJ picks up the note. She sighs.

“I'm not saying you failed, tiger. Some people just aren’t good for each other.”


	3. Wouldn't It Be Nice (3)

They develop a routine.

Peter comes home, late at night, to find Eddie asleep on the couch, tightly wrapped up in a blanket, hugging himself, breathing softly, and Peter hates him for it. Eddie takes long, hot showers, humming old songs in a rolling voice, drawing a familiar face into the condensation on the mirror before he leaves, and Peter hates him for it. Eddie navigates his flip phone with big, meaty fingers, eyes narrowed in concentration until he seems to receive a response and lights up, only for a moment, until he realises he’s looking at him, and Peter hates him for it.

Eddie hates Peter, too, and Peter hates himself for hating Eddie, and he doesn’t know if the opposite is true, but it’s an entirely unpleasant stew of hatred to be broiling in, regardless.

And in his most introspective moments, hanging upside-down and looking out into the sunset, as he does, Peter knows that hatred isn’t the right word at all. It’s frustration, more like. It’s not knowing what the right thing to do is, much less how to do it.

It'd be easier if being around Eddie was the kind of thing you'd get used to, rather than the kind of thing that worms itself deeper and deeper into your brain, making you more and more insistently aware of itself. It feels like he’s getting away with something. Like Peter’s letting him get away with it. Like it’s dangerous, for him not to seem like it.

* * *

MJ’s on TV again, shining like the star she is. It’s an afternoon rerun, but Peter takes a moment to watch her anyway, sprawled sideways across the couch, loosely hugging a pillow. Eddie leans against the wall, arms crossed, caught in her gravitational pull on the way out.

"Lovely girl."

"Mhm."

God, but he wishes she was here.

"We treated her too harshly when we first met.” Eddie looks solemn, but whether it’s genuine or part of the image he’s out to project - regretful, though his hand was forced, of course - is anyone’s guess. “Rest assured, we were only trying to get to you."

Peter’s fingers curl into the pillow. "You were pretty close to considering her collateral damage, though, weren't you? Corrupted by me, even."

"We…" Eddie looks past the TV. "We wouldn't have hurt her. We… I like to believe that. I want to believe that." There's a hint of a smile. “My Other even chided me for scaring her.”

Peter believes it, on some level. He must believe it, or he wouldn’t be here. Wherever Eddie would be, it wouldn’t be here.

"All the same, we viewed everyone in terms of…" Eddie swallows. "Everything, in terms of…" He shakes his head. "We were lost, at the time. We hadn't found ourselves yet."

If Eddie's found himself, he hasn't found anyone who's safe to be around. Plenty of people to attest to that.

"Doesn't matter, now," Peter settles on saying. "I don't want you alone with her, either way."

“I assure you, we’d do anything to protect-”

“I know- If it comes down to it, I know, and I'm grateful. But there's more than life-or-death situations, Eddie.”

And the truth is, Peter never invited him to share in his life and identity. If Eddie has access to his loved ones, it's not because he trusts him with them. If his presence was anything, it was invasive, pervasive, similarly to the symbiote. Now that he could set boundaries, he would.

Eddie looks irritated, squeezing his arms with a lopsided scowl. He moves to speak, almost certainly to protest, but Peter cuts him off.

"Your actions have consequences. The way you treat people has consequences."

Eddie barks out a laugh.

"Was trying to teach you that one for the longest time, but somehow it never seemed to stick."

He steps towards the couch, hands on the armrest, looking down at him. Peter turns on his back, feeling oddly vulnerable under his gaze. Eddie's hair falls past his face.

"Funny." His voice is a low growl, unfamiliar for how unhurried it is. "That's the same thing we were trying to teach _you_."

Peter blinks up at him. "I think, more than anything, you were trying to teach me how to die."

Eddie leans closer. "We were just trying to make sure it'd stick," rolls, heavy, off his tongue.

* * *

"Eddie, if you leave an empty milk carton in the fridge one more time..."

Eddie groans, eyes closed, from the couch. His cocoon’s looking bigger than usual.

"Did you steal my blanket?"

Eddie groans, wiggling free. "Maybe."

"Don't do that. And don't leave your laundry on the floor, either."

"Right." Eddie sits up, looking scruffy, scratching the back of his neck. "Didn't mean for my existence to impose. Won't happen again."

Peter rolls his eyes. "It's not your existence. It's some very specific facets of your existence."

"Like everything I think and believe…"

"Could use improvement, yeah."

"Everything I love, everything I want…"

"Well, Eddie, sometimes it's kind of inadvisable."

"Everything I do and everything I am."

Peter stops, in the middle of gathering up the barely-plural tank tops and hoodies Eddie refuses to expand on. "Of course not," he says. Why would they be doing any of this, if it was that easy? "You have plenty of positive traits."

He keeps moving, waiting for Eddie to poke and prod him about it. Instead, the silence stretches on, awkwardly, as he lifts the couch to look for stray socks, struck, once again, by the inappropriate domesticity of it all. He takes a deep breath. He reminds himself.

"You- You care. About others. You put the good of others before your own, sometimes. Not on laundry day, but, you know. When it matters." Peter drops it all in a bag, squatting above it, a convenient excuse not to look at him. “You’ve got a self-sacrificing streak, Eddie. I appreciate that.”

He bounces on his toes, waiting for some kind of reaction. Dreading it.

“Of course you would.”

There it is. Peter curses under his breath, dropping his head. “Alright, what’s the problem now?”

“It’s not a problem. It’s just true.”

He whips around, arms outstretched. “What’s true? You know more about what I mean than I do, clearly, so please, let me know!”

“Nothing,” Eddie hisses, and almost stumbles over his blanket as he stands, pulling it around his shoulders, “could be more convenient for you, and all you superhero types, than me, with my ‘self-sacrificing streak’, getting myself killed for the greater good.”

Peter splutters. “Are you- Are you saying I want you dead?”

“Oh, you’re not allowed to want that. But it'd be a relief, wouldn’t it?”

“Eddie, when have I ever-” He steps up to him, grabs him, shakes him. “Seriously, even at your worst, when have I ever?”

Eddie hums. “I’m sure it's happened. Late at night, sometimes.” He looks into his eyes, almost gentle. “No shame in it. No need to be shy.”

Peter’s nails dig into his shoulders. 

* * *

There’s lots of things you'd like to come home to, if you were exhausted, physically and emotionally. A nice bubble bath, maybe. A supportive partner. Not so much Eddie Brock, sitting at your kitchen table, as familiar as the sight has become over the past three weeks.

Peter wouldn’t have the energy to engage even if he wanted to. He pours himself a bowl of cereal, moving mechanically, and sits down across from him without making eye contact. He wills himself to pick up the spoon, hands heavy.

He takes a moment to breathe, the air humming in his ears, the light stinging his eyes, muscles twitching in response to non-existent threats.

“Parker,” Eddie says, and Peter’s core seizes with it. “Bungle any moral dilemmas, lately?”

Peter sits there, processing the situation. He feels his chest jump with laughter, or something like it, and somehow, weeks of confusion and conflict give way to crystal clarity.

“We’re never going to get along,” he says, hoarse.

There’s the slightest twitch of Eddie’s throat. For a moment, his mouth moves as if to form a word, and his eyes move as if looking for something. Then, an amused exhale.

“When was that ever on the table?”

Peter doesn’t know, really. Not just because his head is pounding.

“The man who abandoned and degraded my other half? A friend?”

Eddie takes a breath, hard and sudden.

“And why? Because you took me in?” He slams a hand on the table, leaning across. “I know you consider yourself a beacon of mercy and grace,” he says, with mocking emphasis, “but you did it to try to control me.” He looks him up and down, lip curled with disgust. “Another villain for the great hero to subdue, right? That’s all we’ve ever been.”

It runs through him, hot and cold. Wrenches the very last of his emotions for the day out of him. "Right," he whispers, and wishes it was.

“Trying to keep me weak,” Eddie says, hands gripping the edge of the table. “Trying to keep me doubting, and docile, and, and-” He searches for his words, frantically. “And alone! Just like you want me. Just like you’ve always wanted me.”

Eddie’s eyes aren’t on him. They aren’t on anything that’s there. Not for the first time. For the first time, though, Peter thinks he might as well give him something to look at.

“You’re right.”

There’s no force behind his voice. It's easy to say. He would've thought giving up would bring him some sort of relief, but it doesn't. It's just easy.

“You don't hear that from me often, but you're right.”

Something about it is funny, then. Peter smiles.

“Soak it up, Brock.”

The kitchen table crashes against the wall. There goes that bowl of soggy, off-brand Cheerios, Peter thinks. He gets up, walks straight past Eddie as he stands, broad-shouldered, arms shaking, flexing non-existent claws.

He locks himself in his bedroom and crawls under the sheets.

* * *

He’s not really dreaming. He’s not really awake. Feverish in-between states, you know how those are. Peter feels certain that he’s slipped out of his own thoughts. He needs to get back to himself, he thinks, this isn’t him, he thinks. He can’t move, though, and if he can’t move, then how did he get here? He can move without moving. He digs deeper and deeper, and it twists further and further. He can grow talons and fangs. If he can move to himself, he has to be someone else. He can move to someone else. He can kill without killing.

He seizes awake.

* * *

Peter stumbles out of his room around five in the morning, half-asleep, to see Eddie staring out the window, pale and clammy under the moonlight.

“Thank god,” he says, and swallows, painfully. “Thank god, Eddie, you're still here.”

There's a good bit of distance between them. He has no idea how to close it, what to say. No idea what’s left for him to do.

"I'm never going to see it again, am I?"

Peter stands there, swaying slightly. "Huh?"

Eddie turns, snarling at him. "Did it know? Was it in on it? Or are you keeping it from me? Are you lying to it, too?"

"Eddie, Eddie-" Peter tries a calming hand gesture, bending at the knees. "Your symbiote is fine. It's with Flash. He's taking care of it, remember?"

"I know!" Eddie's chest is heaving. "And we both know I'm not getting it back. I don't know- I don't know why I ever-"

"Stop," Peter says, frantically fishing for his phone. "Stop, okay. Look at this." He rubs his face, fighting off a wave of dizziness, then pulls up a calendar app. "Look. A month from now. They're coming back." He holds it out to Eddie at arm's length. "That's on my own phone. You wouldn't see that. I wouldn't have that, if it wasn't true."

Eddie's eyes narrow. "Please. As if you couldn't have seen this coming."

Peter feels close to collapsing. "Eddie…"

"I finally understand. I thought there wasn't much in it for you, at first, but keeping us separated, that's been pretty high on your list of priorities, hasn't it?" He slowly slides closer, arms tight at his sides. "Keeping me here. Always telling me why nobody should be with me, why I'm not good enough-"

It's real, then. "I'm sorry," Peter says, voice breaking, and then that's real, too.

Eddie stops, looks at him, head turned to the side. What is it, fear, disgust, anger? The shadows thrown on his face aren’t helping.

"I think I fucked up." Peter smiles, strained. "You know me, it's what I do."

Peter still can't tell what reaction Eddie’s going through, but if he’s going to let these thoughts into his head, he’s going to get them into his, too. He has to own up to it, for his own peace of mind, if nothing else.

They're not good for each other.

"I thought I could handle it, but I…" He sweeps a strand of hair out of his face, cold and wet. "I feel… guilty, all the time, on your behalf. And I feel guilty for not feeling guilty! And I keep trying to drag it back up, and I get frustrated when it doesn't fix anything, and I…"

And I'm still scared, and hurt, Peter thinks. Like hell is he going to say that, though. He doesn't have to say any more than that.

"I think… Some part of me wanted one thing... and another one didn't want me to want that, and then… this."

Peter was gesturing, away from his chest, as if pulling something out of it. He drops his hands, now, letting some of the tension in his body subside. "I wanted to help." Peter inhales and exhales, deeply. "I wasn’t able to."

Eddie looks... lost.


	4. Wouldn't It Be Nice (4)

Peter doesn’t avoid his problems. It’s more that he’s got a complicated multi-level priority queue of problems, so some things get pushed to the back. Dealing with the fallout of arguing with your roommate, for example. Perfectly normal, that. Far from the first time it’s happened. What’re roommates for, really? It’s always a complicating factor when they've killed before and will kill again, but the principle remains the same.

You gotta do what you gotta do. Return to the apartment at some ungodly hour. Turn the doorknob with near-surgical precision, lock clicking into place as gently as possible. Tiptoe inside and hold your breath before you round the corner, thinking to yourself, hey, hey, he’s not awake, is he? If this was an ambush, you wouldn’t let me walk into it any more than you’d let me be crushed under a falling piano, would you?

Find him fast asleep, after all, nestled in a mess of blankets, one arm hanging off the couch.

Think of how he's stubborn to the point of self-destruction, and he simply wouldn't have had the sense to be swayed by your arguments if he really hadn't wanted to come here. He wouldn't have agreed to any of it, if, deep down, he hadn't believed in what you were offering. That you'd help him, work this out, whatever. That he'd end up somewhere better.

And now?

You could cross the distance to your room in the blink of an eye, if it weren’t for thoughts like that one weighing you down, embedded in your ribcage like a sheet of metal, caught in an impossible mess of magnetic forces. Eddie's at the center of it, pushing and pulling at you in equal measure, with every rise and fall of his chest, and you hate yourself for it.

You, the universal you, the you that could be anyone in this situation. Generally speaking.

You sneak past him, slowly. You freeze, right next to him, because you swear you can hear a faint growling noise, but his eyes are closed. His teeth clench, and his legs twitch, and then it stops, and the stress lines that are capable of completely transforming his face dissolve again, and you have to deal with the fact that he probably dreams of tearing after you across the rooftops the way dogs dream of hunting rabbits. Almost innocently, really.

You stand there, lips pressed together, waiting for the urge to laugh to pass. You sink to your knees, defeated.

You're tired, but in a very different way than the night before. Not too tired to sleep, but tired enough to do it right here, head resting on the couch. Tired enough to slide one hand up his back, right between his shoulder blades, and ask, Eddie, do you understand? 'Cause I gotta be honest, I don't even understand what I'm asking.

You're tired enough to do it, but you don't. Your hand is only resting on the edge of the couch when Eddie, inevitably, opens his eyes the tiniest sliver, all shades of grey, none of that dark blue shining through.

Peter pulls his hand back.

Eddie makes a visible effort to focus on him, as if he'll disappear if he gets it right. Contorting his face this way and that, he mumbles: “Trying to strangle me in my sleep?”

Peter blinks. “Why would I strangle you in your sleep? I could strangle you whenever.”

"You don't have the backbone to look me in the eyes while you do it."

"Right." Peter drops his head towards his chest. No avoiding it, now. He didn't even try that hard, really. "Listen..."

"I'd prefer not to." Eddie closes his eyes and turns over, kicking his blankets out of the way. Like that's that.

Peter taps his fingers against the cushions, looking over him. "The silent treatment? Is that what I get for trying?"

The answer is self-evident.

"Not like I expected anything else," he grumbles. "Not like I expected to get an apology in return, or anything."

At the end of the day, Peter's the kind of person who has to own up to being, as he's now been informed, 'mean' and 'unhelpful', and Eddie's the kind of person who can target him and his loved ones for years and get away with it.

Continued silence. For the best, maybe. Peter's got too much bitterness to soak in, too many words that are just absolutely drenched in it. Don't get dragged down, keep it focused.

"Listen, I am sorry. And if you don't want to talk to me, then don't. And if you want to leave, then…"

He'll help him, he almost says. It would seem like the mature thing to say, but they left maturity behind a good while ago. There's no way he wouldn't take it as one final rejection.

Peter understands a little more than he did. Too late, but- Well.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't," he says, carefully. "But you can, we can, I mean… I'm not keeping you here, either."

Eddie doesn't say a damn thing. Doesn't turn around. Peter watches him, but there isn't much information about the inner workings of his mind to be gleaned from his back muscles.

"You're not the type to sulk, you know."

"No?" Eddie asks, voice lilting upwards.

"Not usually, no," Peter says, slowly. Eddie's the type to act, and rashly, too. The scope of what he can do is greatly limited right now, but Eddie's also the type to scheme in the long term, when the situation calls for it. Eddie's the type to fixate on something and pursue it, relentlessly. That’s the only coping mechanism he has, and Peter doesn't like the unpredictability of not knowing what it is.

"I might as well ask. You're not going to do anything either of us will regret, are you?"

There’s a moment’s pause.

"No.”

That’s the opposite of reassuring.

* * *

The place looks empty. No lights on. It’s a worrying sight. Eddie could be getting some air, which is inadvisable enough at this time of night, or he could’ve decided he’s better off living among the sewer people. Like, again. He could’ve even decided to head for Philly with nothing but the clothes on his back and a murderous twinkle in his eye. You know, again.

History has a tendency to repeat itself around here. Be nice if it didn't, just this once.

As he ponders whether to go out looking for him, Peter opens the door to his bedroom.

Ah.

“Relapsed on your ‘dramatically lurking in the darkness’ habit, have you?” Peter shakes his head, crossing his arms and leaning against the door frame. “Tsk, tsk, Eddie. You could be so much more than an ominous figure, shrouded in shadow.”

Eddie vaguely resembles a gargoyle, squatting on the edge of his bed. He smiles, but it’s not so much the good kind of smile as the familiar kind of smile. “Don’t mind me,” he says. “I was just wondering how you sleep at night.”

Peter sighs. “That bed would be relevant to the process, I guess.”

“Yes. Nicer than anything I’ve had in a while, though that may reflect on me more than it.”

It’s the cheapest IKEA had to offer. Getting on in years, too.

“But no, what I meant was-” Eddie makes a hand gesture, like something’s on the tip of his tongue. “In a spiritual sense, you know?”

“I know what you meant. I just can’t believe you’re bringing it up.” Peter clicks the light switch on. Eddie winces, blinks, irritated, but doesn’t, as he’d hoped, hiss at the ceiling lamp.

“I never got to ask, did I?” Having had the theatricality of his pose undermined, Eddie slides off the bed. “We made our choices, but we never sat down to discuss the aftermath.”

"And this is- You want to do this now?” With every ‘now’, Peter points to the floor, hunched over. “You think this is what’s important right now? What, we don’t have enough arguments-”

Eddie grabs the door, and Peter flinches out of the way, air rushing past his face, as he slams it shut, trapping him. Trapping them, rather. Peter shoots him an irritated look.

"What could be more important, Parker? More fundamental?" Eddie raises his hands, palms facing his chest, and closes them into fists. "And now? Now that we're finally trying to deal with each other?"

Peter chews on his lip. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“It’s all we can do,” Eddie says, solemn. “We’re never going to be friends. Not because of any petty, domestic dispute,” he says, and points into Peter’s face, “but because you are the embodiment of every reason I took up my principles.”

That’s the kind of thing it hurts to respond to. Hurts to treat it like something worth responding to. “ _Me?_ ” is all he manages, nose scrunched. “ _Yours?_ ”

Eddie steps towards him. More accurately, he closes in, settling into Peter’s personal space like he belongs there. “I know you feel the same way about me- I’m not nearly as oblivious as you think. It just seems like a false equivalence, really.” He shakes his head, as if disappointed. “I may be a murderer, Peter, but I don’t have hundreds, thousands of preventable deaths on my conscience.”

It’s an attempt to break something, break into something. It’s obvious, transparent, but that doesn’t make it better. It’s purposeful. That makes it worse.

“Oh, so it’s, what, all very high-minded questions of morality? It’s all about the, the poor potential innocents? You’re not lashing out because I told you to fuck off? Not at all?”

Eddie looks off into the distance, as if deep in thought, trying to recall the event he’s been stewing in for days. “Come to think of it, that was very rude of you. It is also the kind of behaviour I’d expect from a man who doesn’t give due consideration to how his actions affect others, though.” He shrugs it off, looking back up at him. “Wouldn’t you rather discuss the high-minded questions of morality?”

Peter swallows a hard, heavy clot, and doesn’t know if it’s made of words said or unsaid. “Well, Eddie, I don’t think my personal failure rate is down to not having killed enough people.” He shrugs. “But I can see why you might think that! When all you have is an angry alien parasite…”

One hand hits the door behind him. The impact runs up Peter’s arms, to his neck. Eddie bends down, bringing their faces close. “This is a question of values, Peter, not emotions.”

Peter hums through a tight smile. “Okay. Let me offer you a deal: Every time I feel your breath on my face, I get to remove one bone of my choosing from your body.”

Eddie grins right back at him. “You don’t like where this is going, do you? Well, you’re not getting out of this one.”

He stands his ground, close enough to radiate heat that tingles on his skin and twitches in his fingers. Peter is rapidly approaching a state best described as ‘hysterically miserable’.

“You can try to secure someone like Kasady without killing him, certainly. But even if you succeed - which you usually don’t, though I’ll admit your speeches sound very heroic -”

“Don’t,” Peter says, voice strained, “Don’t you act like I expect the spirit of brotherhood and good will to contain him-”

“You’ve still made the decision to value his life over the safety of everyone else. You’ve decided that innocents aren’t the priority, and you’ve left them to live in fear.”

Peter’s had better guilt trips. Even without help.

“I think,” he says, “if their friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man started acting as judge, jury, and executioner, that would be the thing people would ‘live in fear’ of.” He tilts his head. “You know, like _you_.”

“Ha!”

Peter’s back hits the door. His breath hitches.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you’d only scare the right people.”

Peter smiles, though it doesn't reach his eyes. “I think I already do.”

“Interesting.” Eddie’s eyes narrow for a moment. “Is that something that would change, then? Not just the what, but the who?”

Peter’s lip twitches. He’s so angry it’s almost hilarious.

“It’s not about the sanctity of life. You just don’t have the strength of character to end some scumbag stain on the face of the earth like Osborn without ending anyone who gets in your way, is that it? You’re hanging by a thread that thin?”

It’s hilarious. That’s how he’s going to cope with this, he thinks, it’s hilarious, it’s the funniest fucking thing. Being bullied in his own home. He’s going to open his mouth and he’s going to make a joke about it.

“One second. Something feels a little off, here.”

His hands twist into Eddie’s hoodie. He spins them around, pushes him up against the door, and he hits it with a satisfying grunt. Eddie flashes his teeth, eyes wild.

“That’s better. Now, where were we?”

Eddie, honest to god, laughs. Short and low and awful. Molten metal in Peter’s chest.

“Who would I kill? You’re asking me that, are you?”

“Of course,” Eddie says. “I know the answer for myself.”

“I think I have the strength of character… never to find out.” Peter pulls him a little lower, just below eye height. “I think my values keep my emotions in check, and your emotions dictate your values. That’s why you went after me.”

Eddie’s hands close around his wrists. Peter expects him to struggle, as futile as it would be, but that’s all it is. Fingertips brushing against the skin under his sleeves.

“So you do want to,” he says.

Peter lets him go. Eddie slumps.

"It wouldn’t matter if I did. I'm not a fragile little boy. I don't need to protect myself by pretending everything I think and do is just and heroic."

Eddie laughs, once. Bent over, hand against the door. As he rights himself, it turns into a growl, and he looks at him, and he pushes off, and he lunges.

Peter hardly registers it. He’s got him caught, reversed, pinned to the mattress, but his brain’s still processing the sensation of being caught underneath claws with the strength of a collapsing building. He shudders, violently.

“What’s wrong with you,” Peter spits, but mostly hears his own heart pounding. “Are you enjoying this? Are you that bored? Are you that empty inside?” His fingers dig into his wrists, pulse hammering beneath them, subduing a much stronger foe. He pulls back. “Are you,” he says, stumbling over a crack in his voice, “Did you never-”

Eddie interrupts him with a grunt, pushing himself up on his elbows. “I think you’re the one who’s protecting yourself.”

“What, from maniacs like you?”

“Emotionally!”

Peter looks into his eyes. There was something manic about them, before, definitely, but it’s slowly fading, now. Hardening. 

“You feel like killing someone will change you,” he says. “You feel like it’ll traumatise you.”

His throat jumps. He hesitates, as if, finally, the silence is making him nervous.

“That's it, isn't it? You cling to your principles. You walk away from the death and suffering of innocents and claim it as a moral victory.”

He exhales, a twitch in the corner of his mouth.

“You’re a selfish coward. Nothing more.”

Peter feels like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin. His hand clamps over Eddie’s mouth, pushing him back down. His other hand moves to his shoulder, to his collarbone, to his throat.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t move at all.

Peter takes it in. His breathing, his heartbeat, his pupils, blown wide. The warmth of his skin, the muscles moving underneath. Every sign of his humanity.

It isn’t what frustrates him, he thinks, it never was, of course not. It’s that it’s out of his reach, threatening to slip away.

He realises that this, rough, threatening, is the first time he’s touched him since he came here.

It hurts. Is it only hurting now?

None of this feels like a new hurt. More like a dull ache, sharpened.

Peter lets go, kneeling upright, letting the buzzing subside. Moving off of him, then.

“You got me,” he mumbles. “You got me, for a second there. Congratulations.”

The emotion drains from Eddie’s face. He looks about as tired as Peter feels.

“I think- I think one thing you keep forgetting, Eddie, is that, if I was killing people for killing innocents… You'd be on that list.” He thinks on it, focusing on some point next to his face. “I don’t think you realise how lucky you are that I’m not like you.”

Eddie snorts. “Lucky,” he says, as if choking on it. “Am I…”

He’s still trying to look angry, or amused, but his expression isn’t cooperating anymore, pulling itself into a grimace.

“Am I lucky? That I get to keep…”

Eddie makes one final effort, pushing up and towards him, face full of hatred.

“Am I lucky, or are you just irresponsible?”

Peter stares at him.

On his next exhale, Eddie makes a strangled, frustrated noise, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his jaw. He’s got the look of someone who’s been caught. That one isn’t hard to recognise.

Peter feels one mental barrier after another fall away. Peter feels like he understands, and he can’t say that he’s any less angry, but he can say that it’s a very different kind of anger.

“I’m not,” he says, roughly, but quietly. “I’m not any of the things you said.”

Eddie looks like he’s cursing himself, dragging one hand down his face. He's carrying his own guilt, and that should make it all easier, shouldn't it? If Eddie's carrying it, Peter can put it down. If it's crushing him…

Peter takes Eddie’s hand. He makes a surprised noise of protest, but Peter still turns it over. Bruises-to-be blooming all around it. "I'm sorry," he says, brushing over them. "I wasn't thinking. I just reacted." He places his hand in his own, palms up. "Do you think anything’s fractured?”

Eddie’s fingers curl inwards, weakly.

“Eddie.”

He forms a fist, but the light touch seems to keep him from moving, still.

“I’m sick of this,” Eddie says.

Peter doesn’t look at him. “Man, me too.”

"I'm sick of- Who are you doing this for? Because, believe me, God isn't watching."

Peter snorts, pressing his way along his wrist. "Squeal if anything's broken, will you?"

Eddie takes another shaky breath. "You're not wrong to hate me. I know that. I'm not- I have my moments of clarity, now and then."

"I don't know what you were having back there,” Peter says, tilting his head and raising his eyebrows, “but it was not a moment of clarity."

Peter reaches for his other hand. Eddie pulls it away.

"I am not someone for you to care about," he says, decisive.

“Well, now I’m going to. Just out of spite.”

"You care about your friends. Your family. Pig-tailed little orphan girls. Not the people you're up against. Not people like me."

"Eddie," Peter says, sighing, "that's not me, that's you."

Eddie huffs. “I’m in no position to criticise, if that’s what you mean.”

Peter doesn't like the sound of that. Eddie Brock, not criticising him. 'It’s not like you’re a common crook,' he almost says, replays it in his head, and definitely doesn't like the sound of that, either.

"I am criticising," he continues, "that you’d go through life like this. Knowing someone’s dangerous, knowing they’re delusional, letting them see it, and hear it, and feel it, and never doing anything about it. Refusing to get it over with, lest it stain your spotless record of heroism.”

Peter was hoping he’d grow more critical of himself. Leave it to Eddie to jump straight to growing critical of his continued existence.

"I’m sick of you, letting the truth shine through, then burying it again." Eddie holds his sore wrist in front of himself, one hand tightly wrapped around his arm. "What is it going to take?”

“Some time for me to think,” Peter says, and reaches for his hand again. He’s focused on it, he realises, because there’s something brewing in his chest, but it’d be a terrible idea to let it out right now. He just pulls Eddie’s arm down, slowly, and pushes, lightly.

Eddie hisses.

“Shit.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Well, you know what they say. Any day where you don’t outright pulverise your roommate’s bones is a good day.”

Peter rummages through his bedside drawer. Plenty of sports injury-related gels, useless for the bruises that disappear overnight, extra useless for the injuries that would require serious medical attention. The placebo effect’s nice, anyway.

“I haven’t always acted like I care,” Peter says, moving back with one of them in hand. “I haven’t always- Well, you got that confession, already. I’ve been… struggling. To, you know, reconcile everything.”

I’ve done what you think I should be doing, he thinks, that’s how you know things were bad. I’ve tried not to care. I’ve thought I shouldn’t. Of course you’d notice.

"And I regret it. And I think it's unfair to think that…" He squeezes some of the tube's contents onto his fingers, then points, in a way that allows no argument, for him to present his wrists. "That me at my worst is who I am, and the rest is a lie I keep up out of obligation."

Peter takes his hand, turns it, examines it. They're lucky, he realises, that most of the pressure was exerted from the front and back, not the sides. Pushed into the groove under the thumb pretty hard, too. Might've sprained something.

"There's nothing more real about hurting people than about anything else."

He coats the front of his wrist in the cooling gel, slides the excess down the sides, and then, carefully, massages it in, two fingers running circles across his pulse point.

"It's just another stupid thing humans do."

He turns it over, Eddie's fingertips brushing against the palm of his hand, curling away, then curling out again, resting in it. He rubs the gel into the back of his wrist, one hand across his.

"Anyone can stop doing it."

When he's done, Peter looks up at his face, because he thinks, maybe, finally, there might be something he wants to see there. Eddie's eyes are turned downwards, at their hands, and stay there even as he looks at him. Peter slides his thumb into his palm, watches for a reaction. That’s communication, too, right? Words haven’t done them any good, but maybe this is the way to reach him.

“Why is it- Why is it that all your fantasies about me killing you are just happening, like, in my bedroom? Or on the couch, or over the dirty laundry? Don’t you think we’d make an occasion of it, if we had one final showdown?”

Eddie gives a staggered exhale through gritted teeth. Hand over his eyes.

“Where’d your sense of drama go, Eddie? I’d think, at the very least, the building should be on fire. You’re worth waiting for a thematic thunderstorm, even. I promise.”

Eddie makes a high-pitched noise in the back of his throat. It is, unfortunately, difficult to differentiate between sobbing and laughter.

"Not funny?"

"A little," he forces out.

Peter tries to take hold of his hand, fingers curled around his. They’re not all the way there, admittedly. Shifting around, trying to find an angle.

“You didn’t come here to die, did you?”

Definite sniffle, there. Eddie tries to rest his forehead on the back of his hand, then winces at the attempt to put weight on it. Gonna have to leave that alone for a while.

“You didn’t come here to hurt me, or to get hurt, or to make me hurt you...”

His chest seems to spasm, quietly, until he has to gasp for air. He’s crying, no two ways around it. Peter covers Eddie’s hand in both of his. He waits it out.

“It wasn't all for nothing,” Peter says, after a while. “You’re at a crossroads, right? If you can admit that you’re not too different…”

Eddie gets some air back into his lungs. He rubs his eyes, then blinks them wide open.

“Well, you know. You can punish yourself as harshly as anyone else, or you can turn it around, treat everyone with a bit more… compassion. Even the not-so-innocents.”

“I try,” Eddie says, voice wavering. “I’ve been trying, but I…”

He squeezes back, for a moment. Then he moves, as if to pull away, and Peter should probably let go, get him a glass of water and an encouraging pat on the back and send him on his way, but it feels like giving up on the first thing that's ever seemed to work. Hell, it's the first thing that feels okay. He might just want to feel okay.

Eddie takes a deep breath, stretching his jaw. "Okay. Remember Scott and Donna? Good people. Heroes.” He drops his hand in his lap. “Dead."

"...And you're blaming me for not stopping you? Eddie, I swear to God…"

Eddie looks alarmed. "No! I'm not blaming… I don't think I am. Am I?” He puts one hand to his head. “This is my point. I don’t change. I don’t learn. I think I do, every time, and...” The hand runs down his cheek. “I knew they didn't deserve to die. I knew that, and I still thought I had to. I thought…” His face falls. “I thought symbiotes had to be monsters, for me not to be.”

Peter’s chest tightens, oddly, at that. He keeps idly messing with Eddie’s hand, threading through his fingers.

"That’s always been it. If I'm a monster, then I have to die, as much as any other. But I keep living, so I convince myself I'm not." He huffs, dismissive. "I'll convince myself of anything, as long as I’m alive."

Peter sighs. "Right. So you know you can't rely on yourself."

He thinks of how Venom stopped going after him. His entire worldview was tilted around Peter as the axis of evil, and one word from Eddie’s ex-wife, one outside perspective, was enough to get him to reconsider.

“Why don’t you just take it easy? Talk to people. Like, people outside your own head. People you can trust.”

Eddie makes a grumbling noise. That’s probably as close to 'you may have a point' as he’ll ever get. They sit there in silence, leaving Peter with no choice but to listen to his own… thoughts, nagging at him.

“Why don’t you apologise?”

Eddie wrinkles his nose. “...For murder? How?”

Peter makes a face, and a number of noises, besides. “Not to the murder victims, maybe,” he settles on saying.

Eddie gives a quick shake of his head. “Their loved ones don’t tend to want to hear it, either.”

Peter breathes in. “Okay,” he says, holding their hands in front of him, propped up on his elbows. “What about attempted murder? That leaves someone to apologise to, right?”

"Yes, but..." Eddie’s eyes slowly widen. “You?” he says, in disbelief, and Peter yanks his hands down with a “Yes, me!”, leaving Eddie to yelp and finally untangle his own.

“Whoops,” Peter says.

“Yes, whoops,” Eddie replies, nursing his wrist. “I just… Really?”

“I’m going to kill you after all.”

“No! I just mean…” Eddie gesticulates, stiffly. “An apology? Really? I was systematically trying to ruin your life! And end it! I invaded every part of it, I must’ve attacked you a dozen times, for years-”

“Feels more like decades.”

“It does, sometimes!”

“And are you sorry?”

Eddie opens and closes his mouth. “I… Yes?” Eddie runs a hand through his hair. “Every time I look at you is a reminder of what I'm capable of. Yes, of course I’m sorry, but what is that worth?”

It’s an acknowledgement. It’s a start.

“What you make of it,” Peter says, and drops sideways onto the mattress.

* * *

They fall asleep right there. Mental breakdowns take a lot out of you, and, despite Eddie’s insistence that it 'wasn’t so literal or well-considered as to lead to anything in the short term', he doesn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone for the night.

Peter wakes to the wretched sound of his alarm, feeling gross and stiff for having slept in his clothes. When he pushes himself up, groaning miserably, Eddie stirs awake, too.

He manages to look small, somehow. Small and stupid in, now, pretty obvious ways. He clearly doesn’t want to be here, probably paralysed by the fact that leaving would draw attention to his presence.

“Hey, Eddie,” Peter says. “Honest question. No consequences. Do you hate me?”

Something happens in his eyes, but it’s too quick for Peter to interpret anything into it.

“No,” he says, eventually, throat scratchy.

“I don’t hate you, either.” Peter leans back on his arms, giving him a bit of distance. “Just so you know.”

Eddie’s eyes fall half-closed.

“Do you think… Do you think we could act like it?”

Something about that unfreezes him. His fingers twitch, and his mouth, too. He laughs, almost, even as he shakes his head, rolling off to the side to sit on the mattress, facing away from him. “Sure,” he says.

“I mean, we’ve tried everything else. I’ve tried to make myself hate you, you’ve tried to make me hate you, you’ve definitely, actually hated me, and now we don't hate each other. I guess I could try to make you hate me, but I don’t really feel like it.”

“Peter,” he says, exasperated. “Shut up.”

“Dehydration headache that bad, huh?”

Eddie drops his head between his shoulders.

“I’m going to get you an aspirin before I leave,” Peter says, rising to his feet, “because that’s what people who don’t hate each other do.”

He walks around the bed, pausing in front of him. “Don’t think it’s, like, a hard and fast rule or anything,” he says. “I mean, if you feel the need to threaten me a little, every now and then, go on and get it out of your system, you know?”

“Peter…”

He squats down, trying to provoke some eye contact.

“So are we good? I mean, are you good, if I’m leaving?”

“This is… uncomfortable enough without you trying to make me comfortable.”

“Gotta be honest, I’m just doing this so I’ll feel less awkward.”

Eddie raises his head, finally. Jeez, but he does look exhausted.

Peter places one hand on his knee. “It’s uncomfortable because I care, right? Not because you think I don’t? Or shouldn't?”

“It’s...” Eddie can't seem to find the words. That’s not something you see every day.

Eventually, his hand lands on Peter’s, somewhere between squeezing and patting it. Some attempt at some affectionate gesture, anyway, until he shoves it off.

“You’re gonna be late.”

Peter slaps both of his knees, lightly. “Right.” He pushes himself back up. “Don’t think you’ll be rid of me for long.”

“Right,” Eddie says, under his breath. “You know you’re gonna get held up.”

“Yeah, well. ‘Soon’ is kind of relative with me.” Peter whips off his shirt, looking for one to replace it. “What do you do when you’re home alone, anyway?”

“I languish in your absence. But I languish in your presence, too.”

“Aw, you're just a romantic." No time for breakfast, he decides, but he can manage a quick shower. Half-shower. “I’m gonna pay you a window visit, at least.”

“A text will be fine.”

“Nuh-uh,” Peter says, half-way out of the room. “Can’t text you food. And hugs.”

“And when have you ever-”

“Gotta start somewhere,” Peter calls from the bathroom. All they have to do is start.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> always remember: canon timelines aren't real and can't hurt you

Starting is easier said than done.

There are no hugs, in the end. Peter considers every possible approach, from the casual sideways slide to the shy shuffle from the front to the comically exaggerated squeeze, but cannot conjure up a scenario in which he leaves with his dignity intact.

The suspicious side-eye he gets also tells him that his efforts aren’t appreciated. When Eddie asks him what he's looking at, he tells him the truth. He's planning his next move. 

Plotting.

It doesn't seem to reassure him.

There is food, at least, with identifiable vegetables in it. If that’s not a step forward, he doesn’t know what is.

* * *

It's been a lunch break like any other. 12:00 to 12:10, acquire bagels. 12:10 to 12:40, herd giant, mutated, radioactive pigeons of unknown origin into incinerators. 12:40 to 12:50, consume bagels in mid-air.

That leaves ten minutes to get back to the lab for another round of material testing, unless, of course, he happens to swing by another ongoing situation that calls for his involvement, first.

He likes to phrase these things as if they weren't a near-certainty. 

It’s nothing flashy, this time, none of the usual suspects. It’s a noise that starts out as distant barking. As he flings himself around the block, it hardly registers on anything but the subconscious level, blending in with the soundscape of the city.

As it goes on, though, it occurs to him that it's awfully loud for a dog. Or rather, that it can't be described as loud or quiet, that it's simply right there in his ears, even when the distance should have rendered it inaudible. It's… projected, in a way soundwaves aren’t.

That can’t be a dog, he thinks.

The very instant the thought crosses his mind, it stops sounding like barking at all, as if it never did. Peter feels something like a twinge in his brain, a turn in his stomach, catches himself on the nearest wall and listens to utterly undefined… noise. Shapeless sounds. 

He takes a deep breath. These are the moments to be treasured. Is it a brain tumour? Will he wish it’d been a brain tumour? Ignorance is bliss.

Maybe it’s some side effect of some other effort at telepathically broadcasting something to the general population. Maybe something electronic, he thinks. For a second, it almost sounds like an old dial-up modem. Maybe something occult. There does seem to be a hint of ominous chanting to it.

Peter shakes his head. He circles the area he first heard it in, looking out for… something. The volume remains even, and the content remains somewhere between everything and nothing. It reminds him of the white noise of a shower head, how, when you’re under enough stress, you can hear voices in it that aren’t there.

In the end, it’s a different sound that tips him off. A gunshot, followed by brief silence. The direction of the noise and sheer, world-weary experience lead him to the back of a warehouse. He lands in a silent roll to slink along behind a row of containers, and when he peeks out into the loading area, he finds a single security guard, gun at the ready, and a man in a hoodie, slowly approaching him.

Peter takes a moment to ascertain who's a threat to who in this situation, but it's really not clear. A man in a hoodie, seemingly unarmed, is all he's got to go on.

Alright, not just that. Tall man, wide man. The kind of man that feels like he's looming over you even from across the room, if the guard stumbling backwards is any indication. Fingers spread out at his sides as if he had claws, teeth bared. Utterly unidentifiable, still. Absolutely no reason to assume anything.

Peter squints. Yes, it could be anyone. That's probably not even a natural blond.

Even from afar, though, it's clear that the tension between them is rising. "Make it stop," the guard finally half-sobs, half-screams, nearly buckling at the knees, and raises his gun. 

Peter steps forward, flicks his wrist with expert precision and pulls it from his hands into his own before the guard can so much as react. “Now,” he calls out, looking from one to the other, "I'm sure we..."

The gun clatters to the ground. 

Looking at something, identifying something, there’s a lot more steps to it than you’re typically aware of. The eye receives very limited impressions as it moves from point to point, looking for patterns, looking for familiarity, making assumptions, enabling it all to be stitched together into one coherent image.

The thing behind the two men puts you through the motions of recognising something without giving you anything to recognise. It draws the eye to point after point, but none of them exist in any relation to each other, none of them are fixed. There’s no traction, no path to follow. No image to assemble. Only dizzying awareness of every attempt to make sense of it, established and discarded more rapidly than the conscious mind can follow.

It takes effort to keep looking, but it’s not expended effort, not like you're putting it in. It’s more like extracted effort, like it's taking it from you. It seems to pay off, though, because eventually, impressions begin to stick, as if his vision were adjusting, achieving a more permanent look at what was only visible out of the corner of his eye.

It looks exactly unlike a dog.

Peter snaps out of it with the unmistakable sound of a fist hitting a jaw. Not only that: When his eyes are drawn to the crumpling guard, he realises that, despite his best efforts, he'd recognise that left hook anywhere. He makes a strangled noise of frustration.

It feels odd to move, like he's come out of stasis only to enter a daze, but he walks up to the mystery man to grab him by the collar and give him a shake. Eddie’s hood falls down, and he looks more irritated than anything.

"What the hell is going on here?"

In the background, the thing… writhes. It’s like a recursion of intestines, more of them wherever you look, some of them dripping with teeth and saliva. The longer Peter stares at it, the more he feels himself slip from where he should be, sick and out of control.

“I didn’t order that shipment, if that’s what you mean,” Eddie grunts, ineffectually kicking his legs at him, “And I don’t see how manhandling me will help-”

Peter drops him. He immediately misses the weight of something real and solid in his hands, grounding him up to his shoulders, down to his feet. It all feels so wrong. The noise it’s making, like wet, slippery snarling, louder and louder. Fear, cold on his skin, in his throat. All the same, he can’t look away. It hasn’t moved yet, but if it did...

“I was only guarding it,” Eddie says as he brushes himself off, far too calm and collected to be entirely sane.

“I’m pretty sure,” Peter says, then points to the unconscious form on the floor, “that guarding it was that guy’s job.”

“He was terrible at it, then,” Eddie grumbles, not even giving the body another look. 

Peter tilts his head this way and that, deeply disliking every change in the creature's angle. “It might not be a good idea to shoot it,” he starts, voice rising in pitch, “but I’m sure you understand why lesser men might try,” he continues, taking him by the shoulders, “don’t you, Eddie? Don’t you?”

Eddie mouths out a ‘what’, incredulous, then looks behind himself and back again. “It hasn’t done anything.”

“It doesn’t need to do anything, it’s-” Peter freezes. “What does it look like to you, exactly?”

Eddie starts to speak, then takes another look. “It’s… I admit, it’s unclear, but it’s kind of like a dog?”

Peter makes a face, not that anyone can tell. “Okay. Let me help you out here: It is not.” He adjusts his grip on him. “I made that mistake, at first, but it is not. That guy was not screaming his head off over a dog.”

Eddie waves him off. “No, no. It’s only dog-adjacent.” He moves to stand next to him, tracing and framing the undulating thing as if it were a fine piece of art in a museum. “Inspired by the essential qualities of a dog. Rendered in a different style. An expressionist approach to the subject matter, following some tenets of surrealism...” He stands back, as if taking a moment to think. “Like a living Edvard Munch painting, if painter and audience were both inebriated,” he finally proclaims.

Peter realises his eyes are stinging. With someone else looking at the thing, he allows himself a few slow blinks. “Eddie, I hate to break it to you, but I’m pretty sure it’s just psychically camouflaging itself.”

Eddie shoves his hands into his front pocket, though they barely manage to fit, and scowls. “All I know is that I found that creature whimpering and cowering in front of the man meant to be its protector. I do deeply apologise for stepping in instead of letting it be put down.” 

For almost getting shot, too. “Why were you even here? Shouldn’t you be… writing about the Top Ten Most Embarrassing News Anchor Slip-Ups?”

Eddie pulls out his hands and presents his wrists, still bandaged. “Do you know how uncomfortable it is to type like this?”

The matter-of-fact tone breaks the otherworldly monster's hold on his attention. “So you’re punching people?!”

“I’m of much more use to society here than there,” Eddie scoffs. “And why aren’t you at work?”

“Because- Oh, son of a...” It only dawns on him then that he’s long-since supposed to be elsewhere. “Because I happened to encounter an eldritch abomination on my lunch break, okay?”

Eddie shrugs, head held high. “No need to be so frazzled about it. I don’t know about you, but it’s hardly my first.”

“It’s not my first, either, but you don’t just… get used to it!”

“You’d be surprised,” Eddie says, sweetly.

Peter shakes his head. “Right. That’s it. I’m calling someone to take care of this.”

There’s a communicator on his wrist. As he reaches for it, Eddie grabs him by the arm. “Hold on,” he says. “Hold on, now. Call who?”

Peter pauses. He could lie. It'd only cost everything he's promised himself, everything he's scraped off of his soul. “...Reed Richards, for now.”

Eddie looks downright offended. “What, so he can examine pieces of it under his microscope? Stick it in his tube?”

Peter narrows his eyes. “...Maybe?”

“I’ve been in that tube. Hardly any way to treat a prisoner, much less an unidentified life form.”

Okay. Okay. No need to remind him that he was in there to prevent him from doing any further murders. Not relevant to the point, clearly. “I promise he’s not going to hurt your… thing. Not unnecessarily. That’s not his style. He's got the most experience with...” 

“I don’t think you understand,” Eddie interrupts, tone reverting to something familiar. “I worry that it’s going to be studied. I worry that someone's going to find a use for it…” He pulls him closer. “I worry that it’s going to be used.”

Right. Once upon a time, this might have been the perfect set-up for Peter to knock him out and be on his way. Now, it's an opportunity. “Alright, Eddie,” he tries, putting up his other hand. “If you stay calm and step away, we can talk about it.”

Eddie flares his nostrils, but relents.

Peter tries his best to model a relaxed, unaffected stance. “I’m sure I can… get you visitation rights, if it’s that important to you. You can check up on it, see it's not being exploited-”

“Not good enough.”

“Seriously?”

“Think about it. It’s been shipped here for a reason. Maybe it escaped, maybe it’s being held here, but there must be something to it…" There's something wistful to Eddie, certainly. "Somebody must want to get their hands on it.”

“Wouldn’t it be for the best, then," Peter tries, and mimes moving a box from A to B, "to hold it in a secure, ethical facility…”

“No facilities.”

Like talking to a brick wall that has "NO" painted on it. Eddie's gaze is directed at the little horror show, and Peter follows it, but can't match it.

Admittedly, it still hasn’t done anything but, as per a word he’s invented just now, wurgle, but they haven’t so much as approached it, either, and even ambient mind-warping shouldn’t count for nothing. 

“It’s dangerous.”

“It’s alive.”

“Yeah, you’re real big on the sanctity of life,” Peter can't help grumbling.

It’s not that he doesn’t get it, either. There’s a reason Eddie’d be predisposed to distrust, here, but letting that narrative stand would be, what? Enabling his distorted thinking? Validating his perspective? Where’s the line? 

Peter allows himself a sigh, long, deep, and from the chest. “And what would you propose we do with it? We can’t take it home like a stray puppy.”

There's the kind of shift in Eddie's features that announces the arrival of a terrible idea. “I'd take it somewhere more… underground. Somewhere it could just… be.” He gives him a sideways glance, breaking into a smirk. “I’m going to catch it.”

Peter knows damn well that he heard him right. “Sorry, what?”

“I’m going to catch it in a simple garbage bag,” Eddie explains with the intensity of someone explaining how he'll break into the central bank, “and if I succeed, and nothing happens to me, I can take it somewhere else. Should my flesh be flayed and my mind torn asunder, you can have it.”

Peter was hoping to avoid any flayings for the foreseeable future. “Why would I ever agree to that?”

Eddie stops, swallows, then speaks, all in one breath. “Because it’s innocent and I need to protect it." With a blink, his eyes soften further. "I need to feel like I can protect something.”

It's idiotic. It's also the first time Eddie's looked at him with anything like trust, or hope. It's not something he should even consider, not unlike how he shouldn't even consider the descriptor 'puppy eyes' for anything he does. But then, isn't thinking of what he shouldn't do... what he shouldn't do?

Peter rubs his face through his mask. “I,” he starts, inhales for one sentence, and exhales another. "Don’t hate you,” he finishes, and feels like he's knocked the wind out of himself. “I don’t hate you…”

Eddie hardly even appreciates the effort. “Must be difficult to remember.”

"Now listen here," Peter says, and pulls him down to grab his face, squishing it between gloved hands. "I am not letting you do this because it's a sensible thing to do. I am letting you do this because I am stupid." He knocks their foreheads together. "Don't get the wrong idea."

"I'll manage," Eddie quips. "This thing where you don't hate me, if I'd known it'd get you out of my hair..."

“Go,” Peter says, pushing him away, “go, before someone else gets here.”

Eddie takes off, backwards, for the first few steps, and grabs a garbage bag from a nearby container. He takes a prowling stance as he approaches the… thing. Peter hops up on top to watch over him, half-expecting a spontaneous dimensional rift to open. Oh, well.

The thing has, if anything, grown even more unstable. In his peripheral vision, he swears he can see human eyes emerge from it, wide and panicked, pupils darting from side to side.

A full-body shudder runs through him. "That thing doesn't look like it… could've been human to you, does it?"

Eddie looks up at him from where he's crouching. "This city certainly has enough transmogrifications to go around, but… no. I can't say it does."

Peter hums an affirmation. Just an illusion, to deter him from attacking it, probably. He tries to ignore the twisting flesh, reaching out of it like the mangled hand of a drowning man.

"Pspspsps," Eddie tries.

“There’s no way that’ll work.”

Eddie holds the garbage bag open in front of it. It doesn’t move away, but it certainly doesn’t move towards it. He pulls what appears to be a half-melted chocolate bar from his back pocket. “Hey, come on,” he says, holding it in front of the opening. “I’m trying to help you.” It doesn't react.

“Eddie…”

“Alright, buddy,” Eddie says, pointedly not directed at him, “if you’re gonna be difficult, we can do difficult.” As he approaches it, it seems like he’ll simply be able to scoop it up. Only when the bag begins to cover the creature does it slide away from it, sideways, without any obvious mechanism of movement, and Eddie goes skittering after it to keep it cornered. 

It’s both awful and hilarious to watch. “Do you want me to just web it?”

“That was not,” Eddie says, bouncing from side to side on his toes, knees bent, "part of the deal."

"I don't care about the deal," Peter says, unimpressed. "I want this to work. I want us to work together. The antagonistic shtick got tiring, what, ten years ago? I want-"

Eddie, suddenly, lunges for the thing and, in an entirely unnecessary roll, grabs it in something like a headless headlock. It's really hard to tell how, exactly, his arms interact with it, but it doesn’t seem to struggle. After a moment of surprised stillness, Eddie looks at him.

“...I just wanted you to stop talking.”

“Well, go!”

The thing only begins to resist when it’s lowered towards its would-be polyester prison, but it doesn’t seem capable of doing much to avoid its fate. Gravity claims it. At the bottom of the bag, it begins to roll and thrash around.

“You’re sure that’ll hold it?”

Eddie shrugs. “It’s double-layered.”

“Well, in that case, who even needs a state-of-the-art containment unit.”

“Do you think I should poke air holes in it?”

“No.”

Eddie heaves the bag over his shoulder. Behind his back, the creature continues to make its distaste known. Sounds like it’s squealing, too. Remarkably undignified for an otherworldly hellspawn.

“Settle down,” Eddie says, and, oddly, for a moment, it does. “It’ll have to hold until I get there. I’ll get it looked at, too, don’t you worry.”

Peter could’ve stopped worrying by now. He could be glad it’s not his problem anymore, but no. He had to decide these would be _their_ problems. “Please… Please just tell me where you’re going.”

Eddie grins, briefly. “Manhattan.”


End file.
